


Late Nights with Death and the Dear Departed

by TheSocialExperiment



Category: Homestuck, Sadstuck - Fandom
Genre: Depressed dave, Gen, Idk what I'm doing with my life, John dies prestory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-11
Updated: 2014-07-11
Packaged: 2018-02-08 09:30:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1935789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSocialExperiment/pseuds/TheSocialExperiment
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John died in a car accident. The Striders have different ways of dealing with their loss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Late Nights with Death and the Dear Departed

It's been a while since John died... 

He was in a car wreck with his twin sister Jane. She survived with only some minor scars, but he bled out as the drunk driver fled the scene. They never found the fucker who did it. 

Although it had been a while, neither of the Strider brothers had moved on. Dave had been dating the blue eyed boy for a few months before the accident. Dirk had a crush on him too. They had competed for his affections, much to his oblivion. Dave won due to the upper hand of knowing John longer. 

But neither of them could have him now. The Strider household was too quiet without the boy's obnoxious laughter and toothy grin. He didn't drag the Strider brothers over to the couch for horrible movie nights that were made a weekly thing. There was no angry midnight cursing as all the swords fell out of fridge, no buckets full of water over the door, no leftover cake in the fridge, nothing. The boy they'd both fallen in love with was gone forever. 

Dave still woke up in a cold sweat, the sound of metal being crunched around his best friend echoing in his ears. Dirk still heard Jane's desperate phone call as she told him to get to the accident, that John was stuck in the passenger seat and he was bleeding too much and too fast. Dave still thought he would wake up to messy black hair and half lidded blue eyes every morning. Dirk still wanted nothing more than to be hit in the face with a shitty pie and hear John's annoyingly cute laugh. 

Dave wasn't the same. He half assed his way through his classes. He stopped going out with Rose and Jade, since they didn't have their fourth member anymore. He sat on the couch and stared at the blank screen, or at the pile of awful movies John insisted at leaving there. 

On the other hand, Dirk immersed himself in his robotics and drinking. He stayed out in bars and got into fights. He came home bloodied and bruised to a quiet house and it drove him mad. He designed a robot in his angered, drunken state before passing out on the floor, surrounded by metal parts. 

When he woke up in the morning, mouth tasting of bile and alcohol, he realized what he had designed. Messy sketches of equally messy hair and blue LED lights. Johnbot. 

He couldn't, he just couldn't, he repeated to himself. But as he examined his plans, he discovered they were nearly perfect. So he got to work, building the object of his desire out of metal sheets and bolts. 

Dirk stayed up for weeks straight, barely even leaving to eat. He had been sober the entire time. This robot had to be perfect. 

When he finished and flipped the switch to turn it on, Dirk didn't quite know what to expect. He had programmed his brain similarly to his AR, using a scan from John's brain. He'd stolen it from the mortuary the night of John's death. He knew the scan would be useful someday. Dirk also pulled all of John's pesterchum chats and logged them into the robot, just in case there was something wrong with the scan. He also put in a learning program that would analyze and decide on what to do based on what John would've done. 

The robot's eyes flashed as the programs started. Johnbot. It contained all of his memories and emotions in a tin can shell. 

"John. Welcome back," Dirk said experimentally. His eyes flashed as the programs all started working and processing the scan. 

Johnbot suddenly crumpled down on the floor from his perch on the table. He emitted a high whine similar to a scream as he curled up in a ball. He tore at his chest as he screamed. 

Dirk's heart sank as the bot writhed around. That's how John had died. A piece of metal stuck through his chest. Every time he moved, it tore open further and made it bleed more. Johnbot was feeling the pain John felt as he died in the car. 

As sudden as he started, Johnbot fell silent. He sat up and spoke. 

"Memory deleted."

Dirk sighed in relief. The learning program had found the memory to be harmful and erased it. Johnbot looked up at Dirk. 

"Hello John. Welcome back," he tried again. Johnbot stood up and put a hand on Dirk's shoulder. 

"Hey Dirk. Where am I?"

He choked back a sob and let out the breath he was holding in relief. He was functional. John was BACK. He was as alive as a robot could be. 

Dirk tugged Johnbot into a hug, burying his face into the metal crook of his neck. 

"Oh John... It's been so long..."

Johnbot laughed. "What do you mean? I saw you last week, silly Strider."

He didn't have any memories of post-death. Duh. Dirk mentally face palmed. Of course he would think only a week had passed. 

"Oh, I've got to go. Jane and I are going out tonight," John said, pulling away from Dirk's grasp. "We're going to go see-"

"That shitty movie, I know," Dirk interrupted. That's what they were on their way to, the theatre, he realized. He'd forgotten. Tears burned at the back of his eyes. 

"Do you want to go too? I'm sure it'll be fine. Jane is such a safe driver, it's like nothing could ever happen..." Johnbot was saying. And Dirk broke down. He was too innocent, too naive to believe he'd ever get hit by another car. Too trusting in the world to think one drunk driver could take him away from his friends and life. 

And it was all too much.


End file.
